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Booker novelists denounce Turkey for charging author

TURKEY has been condemned by Kazuo Ishiguro, the novelist, and fellow Man Booker prize nominees over a threat to imprison one of its leading writers for highlighting his country’s role in the 1915 Armenian genocide.

Orhan Pamuk, 53, who has written several award-winning books, was charged last week with “denigrating national identity” with comments in a Swiss newspaper. If found guilty at his trial, set for December 16, he could be jailed for up to three years.

Publicity surrounding the case has thrown the spotlight on Turkey’s human rights record as it prepares to begin negotiations next month on joining the European Union.

Ishiguro, who won the Booker prize in 1989 for The Remains of the Day and is on this year’s shortlist for Never Let Me Go, said: “I’m astonished and horrified to discover such a situation can arise in Turkey today — and to a writer who has done